Any river carries the shapes of all the bodies
only so long as the bodies remain.
Remove flesh from river, let the divers
recover—and the river heals itself,
refuses to imagine the next one
who jumps or slips or is thrown—
In this way is a book like love: It will hold
the memory of the bodies—be infused, absolute.
Burn them, send the ash to fall from the sky
and still—
Ash arrives at the river and the river
makes way. The ash tastes of fire
and the river wonders about burning—
this thing it can see, but never have, never be.